Painting People

Painting People by Burt Silverman. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780273011521.

Informal, sensitive, psychologically revealing paintings of people are the central focus of the work of Burt Silverman, one of the most admired realist painters in America. In this lavishly illustrated book, Silverman describes how he paints haunting portraits and figures in oil, watercolor, and pastel and shows how he handles each medium in a series of step-by-step demonstrations with nearly every step reproduced in full color.The author begins with a brief, fascinating account of his struggle to achieve a personal style and make his mark as a realist painter...at a time when the galleries and the art press were dominated by abstract painting. He then describes his studio setup, materials, and methods for painting in oil, watercolor, and pastel. He explains how he develops is pictorial ideas; tells how he often paints a series of interrelated pictures to explore a theme; and is refreshingly frank in his self-criticism, his successes and his failures.In seven step-by-step demonstrations, with each shown in full-page size, the reader has closeups of the artist painting studies of figures on a beach and a self-portrait in oil; two figures studies and a family portrait in pastel; and a portrait and a figure in an architectural setting in watercolor.